There were more than four decades separating their Navy service, but both Joe Rabideau and Kelly Durgan served on active duty at the Navy base in Guantanamo Bay.
They met and ended up discussing familiar landmarks and congruent experiences over bagels in the East Ridge Middle School cafeteria on Tuesday morning following the school's annual Veteran's Day assembly.
"That was nicer than what we used to do on the base at Veteran's Day. It made me cry," Durgan said.
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The two Navy vets joined an auditorium full of local veterans. They were serenaded, applauded and decorated with handmade East Ridge Middle School hero medals.
"You deserve all of the thanks that we can possibly give," seventh grade social studies teacher Michael Settanni, who acted as emcee, told the veterans in the audience. A sizable number of parents also attended. "We're sorry we can only do it one time a year, but this one time we're gonna do it good."
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The vets watched three slide shows showing Americans in uniform from various wars, and listened as students read poems, played instruments and sang. Participating students included sixth graders Lizzie Lordi and Sarah Engelberg-Nolan, seventh graders Tyler Anderson, Alexandra DiGiacomo and Patrick Davidson and eighth graders Kean Quick, Sarah Heft, David Witthoft, Kent Rapp, Joseph Lordi, Natalie Gaisser, Margot Kenagy and Matthew Schonberg.
"It was moving," said sixth grader Will Zieman, who attended the assembly with his grandfather, World War II vet William Zieman of Wilton.
The elder Zieman looked at his grandson and his second-grade granddaughter, Grace.
"They suckered me into wearing a uniform," he said.
